Reader's Block

I had to stay late at work tonight. Today was marathon day, so students didn’t have classes (and teachers didn’t have to teach). Instead, the students, and a few teachers ran a marathon: 11km for boys and 6km for girls. As far as I know, the run is mandatory and everyone receives a time and ranking for their run. I was considering running with the students, but I haven’t been in very good running form since I’ve been in Japan, so I opted to ride my bike instead – so that I could “supervise.” My supervision generally entailed that I coast through the more rural-ish neighbourhoods of Iwaki under the beautiful, but not to hot sun, while offering the odd “gambatte” (“do your best”) to the students. I haven’t been for a good bike-ride in a while, so it was good to see some of the changing of the seasons. The leaves have started to turn and all of the rice fields have been harvested and only sheared stems stick out, dried and brown from the ground. We’ve also had a lot of rain over the last couple of days, so the rivers and canals that wind their way through the city flowed clear and crisp.

For the balance of the day, I planned most of my lessons for the next two weeks and studied some Japanese out of my newly acquired correspondence course package I received in the mail today (actually, I think I received it last week, but I’ve neglected to check my mailbox). I also did a big overhaul cleaning of my office that was beginning to get a bit cluttered. I was about ready to start packing up, when a student (who has had most of the afternoon off due to the marathon), walked into my office and asked if she could come back in an hour to have her essay looked at. Third year students are working very hard right now because many universities have their entrance exams fairly soon. I wanted to tell her to leave it on my desk and I’d have it back to her tomorrow, but I could sense the urgency in her. I also figured that I should earn some of my pay for today, so I kept myself busy until she returned. We ended up working for almost an hour on a good essay on how she has become interested in the sustainable development of developing nations and what bearing this will have on her future.

When I finished at school, I made my way over to the library. I’ve purchased a few manga (Japanese comic books) since I’ve been here, but these have proven to be quite beyond my reading level. It usually takes me about an hour with a dictionary to read through about one page. Even then, I still have only a vague idea of what I’ve read. Somehow I got it in my head the other day that because my Japanese reading ability is probably worse than a preschooler, I should probably be reading books written for people of this age. So I walked into the library and quickly found the children’s section.

For those of you who have not visited the children’s section of a library for quite some time, I highly recommend it. I can’t believe that I ever gave up picture books. Browsing through the children’s books made me feel like one myself (a child that is). I would pick up a book after appropriately judging it by its cover, and then I would flip through a few pages to see how many words were on each page. Just like when I was 5, if there were too many words, I would put the book back: “I’ll read that one when I’m older,” I thought. Also, because I have barely any concept of how to search for books arranged alphabetically (with the Japanese alphabet) by author (of which I have very little knowledge), my wanderings were dictated more by the geographical arrangements of the bookcases and the aesthetics of the scenery, which was comprised mostly of book covers placed on display at the end of each shelf.

It is my hope that in a foreign culture where I know very little of the language, picture books will be a way for me to expose myself to narratives that actually make some sense.

I ended up with three books. I almost had four, but I had to return one because it turned out that it was part of a reserve section (silly foreigner). I was looking forward to this one because it was about a bear who seemed to like food. Not only do I like bears and food, but it also looked like it was within my reading level. As for the books that I did end up with, one is about a zebra and his Serengeti friends, another about a girl who talks to things, and a Dr. Seuss book about a moose that has been translated into Japanese. I was really excited about the Dr. Seuss and I even showed it to some students that I ran into in the library, but they only looked dumbfounded when I waved it in front of their faces enthusiastically. I’m also worried that even Dr. Seuss is probably beyond my reading ability.

My last stop before coming home was the Supermarket, which is a dangerous place for me when I’m as hungry as I was. At this point, it was well past my dinner time and I hadn’t even started cooking. To make things worse, I took apart my stove for cleaning last night and it was still in my sink soaking. Knowing how hungry I was and making an estimate on how hungry I would be by the time I would actually get to sitting down and eating, I bought accordingly. I ended up with: a package of 7 oysters, a package of 12 gyoza, 2 full sanma fish, a portion of udon noodles, and vegetables for a salad that when prepared, took up about half an ice-cream bucket. Dinner went smoothly and I am stuffed.